Pat Cadigan

"My father was an alcoholic and my home life was often unpleasant. We lived in a trailer in a field behind a gas station. It was not a time when women were allowed to leave home but my mother took me and we went to her sister's." --Pat Cadigan (in "Virtual Celebrity", The Guardian , Wednesday 16 March 1994).

Attended the University of Massachusetts (Amherst, Massachusetts) on a scholarship, majoring in theater.

1975 -- Graduated from the University of Kansas.

After working in a design studio, she spent ten years writing greeting card messages for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City.

"I also wrote keychains, paper plates, posters, coasters, cocktail mats. There were days when it was like: I cannot do another Easter verse. I cannot". --Pat Cadigan (in "Virtual Celebrity", The Guardian , Wednesday 16 March 1994).

"She became a full-time writer in 1987. She has won a World Fantasy Award and the 1988 Locus Award [for her short story 'Angel', included in Patterns ], and she has several times been a finalist for the Hugo Award as well as the Nebula. Her first novel, Mindplayers , was nominated for the Philip K.Dick Memorial Award. Patterns , her short fiction collection, won the 1990 Locus Award for best short-story collection, and was nominated for the Bram Stoker and the Thorpe Menn Awards. She lives in Overland Park, Kansas...

"Pat Cadigan's short fiction has appeared in various publications, including Omni and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and in many anthologies. Her work has been translated into French, German, Polish, Japanese and Czech." [publisher's bumpf]

"Pat Cadigan's career began with the decade. Her work has shown wide variety, ranging through dark fantasy and horror to quirky and original science fiction.

"Cadigan's style is often marked by a tough-minded vigor and icy undercurrents of black humor -- an Eighties sensibility that can only be called punk. Her 'Pathosfinder series' (including such stories as "Nearly Departed") was remarkable for its eerily visionary air.

"Cadigan's multifaceted talent includes a strong gift for definitive hard-core cyberpunk." --Bruce Sterling (in Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology , 1986).

"She writes full time with the music turned up loud." [publisher's bumpf in Storming the Reality Studio , 1991]

"She is funny, intelligent, very mentally quick and she writes intense gripping stories which probe into the darkest corners of the human psyche." --Alan Wexelblat (in a review of Dirty Work , 1994).

March 1992 -- Panel member in the Whitney Museum's 'Performing Bodies and Smart Machines' discussion of 'Writers on the Future of the Body and Technology'.

May 1992 -- Elle magazine profile... as one of the women writers whose work is changing and reshaping the field of science fiction.

January 1993 -- Presentation on the future of popular culture at Shippensburg University.

October 1993 -- Mademoiselle magazine named her as one of the six "computer goddesses".

March 1994 -- One of the featured speakers at the London Institute For Contemporary Arts conference on the future of virtual reality. [here's an external link to her speech]

"As Pat Cadigan crosses the room, her eyes suddenly catch the light, like a cat's. For a split second they flash emerald, transparent and luminous....

"Fuzzy-haired, feisty and 40, Cadigan is the queen of cyberpunk. She was the single female voice in Mirrorshades , an omnibus of cyberpunk writing." --Marianne Brace (in "Virtual Celebrity", The Guardian , Wednesday 16 March 1994).

May 1994 -- Gave a presentation at the University of Warwick (Coventry, England) as part of the 'Virtual Futures' conference.

Ex-Husband: Arnie Fenner.
Son: Robert Michael Fenner.

"Arnie Fenner and I are no longer married. The only reason I'm bothering to correct this is, Arnie has since remarried his business partner Cathy Burnett, and none of us would want anyone to be confused." --Pat Cadigan (in a personal e-mail, Friday 2 February 1996).

Thursday 9 May 1996 -- Married to Chris Fowler at Wood Green Civic Centre, north London. John Clute and Dora Alderson were the witnesses, and Judith Clute took photos.

"...She's now Nova Express' UK Correspondent. :-) ...You might also want to mention that Pat was interviewed in Volume 3, Number 1." --Lawrence Person (in a personal e-mail, Saturday 1 March 1997).

24 October 1997 -- Book reading and discussion about Identity in the Postmodern World (with Henry W.Targowski) at the Cyberia internet café (London, England).

"All Cadigan's work is typified by a hard-bitten but evocative prose, an understanding of the bleaker side of the human psyche, and an undergirding compassion." --Michael Bishop.

"I can't think of another writer who makes such exacting work look so easy." --Lewis Shiner.

"If you haven't tried Cadigan yet, you're still drinking that sissy kid stuff." --Michael Swanwick.

"Pat Cadigan is one of the best new science fiction writers around. All her work is of a consistantly high quality (and mind-altering strength). I highly recommend all of her books." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 1995).